We Apologise for the Delay...

Alright, alright, I'm sorry!  I know I've been a bit rubbish this week and taken several days to get around to writing this post.  It's just been one of those weeks where time is in very short supply.

Time being in short supply is a bit of a theme for the latest book I've read, 'In-Flight Entertainment' by master short story writer Helen Simpson.  This is the third book of Ms Simpson's short stories that I've read, after 'Hey Yeah Right Get a Life' and 'Dear George and Other Stories'.  I first found out about her when I read the chilling 'Diary of an Interesting Year' in a weekend newspaper, a story which is included in this collection.

'In-Flight Entertainment'
by Helen Simpson
(Vintage, 2011)

'In-Flight Entertainment' contains 15 short stories mostly connected by the theme of impending doom due to global warming and humanity's tendency to bury its head in the sand.  The stories include 'Diary of an Interesting Year', a story of survival after environmental catastrophe, the claustrophobic 'In-Flight Entertainment', charting the shifting discomfort of an air passenger as he converses with a fellow traveller, 'Channel 17', which captures snapshots of the relationships of hotel occupants, and 'I'm Sorry But I'll Have to Let You Go', a tale of cold hearted idiocy.

I've got to be honest, I struggled a bit with this book.  I bought it because I'd been intrigued by 'Diary of an Interesting Year' (which has lost none of its power.  Since re-reading it, I've found myself trying to be a bit less wasteful and a bit more environmentally friendly as I go about my business.  There's not many stories that have snuck into my psyche like that!) and wanted something small and portable to take with me to read at a wedding (well, not at the actual wedding, obviously, but at the hotels the night before and night afterwards.  Given the chance, I'd probably have filled the bags with books, so this was my attempt at being practical!  Anyway...).  I still feel it's a bit patchy and I felt more engaged by some stories than others (I've still no idea about 'The Tipping Point') and, sadly, I feel that the theme of environmental catastrophe was clumsily handled at times.  It felt shoe-horned in in places and I felt a bit nagged really.

Looking at it now, though, I've realised that I actually enjoyed a lot more of it than I realised at the time.  Also, I feel that a second reading when I've got fewer distractions might mean less of it flies over my head.  To paraphrase the classic line, it's not the book, it's me.

I liked that some of these stories were a bit of a departure from others that I've read, focussed on more than relationships.  'Diary of an Interesting Year' is almost Science Fiction, while 'The Festival of the Immortals' was almost fantasy (well, for a book worm anyway!).

On the whole, I'd say this is not the best Helen Simpson book to start with, but I would recommend her as a writer to anyone, although her usual themes are likely to appeal more to a female audience.  This is her fifth collection, so there are four others to try first.  I've only read two, so don't feel I can recommend one just yet, although at least one Tweeter (Alex Griffith/@jalexgriffith ) praised 'Constitutional' when I mentioned it on Twitter.  Perhaps that's the one I will go for next, once I've got a few more titles off the list!